Nowadays, a user on average receives hundreds, if not thousands, of electronic messages each week. User interaction with any of these message may be tracked through web bugs and their patterns determined by analyzing how users handle (e.g., review repeated or delete without viewing) content items within the electronic messages.
For example, a promotional email may contain content elements that the intended recipient is not made aware of (e.g., invisible icons); and the user's activity with respect to the email may be tracked and user interests in the content of the email gauged—unbeknownst to the user—by tracking how frequently or recently the user downloads these content elements, on the basis that such downloads is highly suggestive of user interests (or lack thereof) in the promotion email's content.
These techniques, while useful to content providers, sometimes intrude on user privacy. Difficulties abound, however, in protecting user privacy in the face of web bugs. One technical problem is that it may not be possible or desirable to block out all (e.g., suspicious) content elements within a message (e.g., an e-mail message). For example, a wedding invitation email with an engagement photo embedded therein may lose its full meaning if the photo is not displayed contemporaneously with the email.
Technical solutions (e.g., computing systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable storage mediums) for reducing or eliminating the above identified technical problems are provided in the present disclosure.